Imagine what other things you could make. Maybe someday there will be a service like Kinkos where you can go print a 3D file without needing to buy your own 3D printer.

My brother works for a defense contractor.

He can design anything in AutoCAD and have it printed out in 3D.

They actually had a sales conference with a guy in the Air Force who wanted a specific part. Before the meeting was over, he had a 3D replica of the part sitting in the guy's hands.

MonkeyBoy

2013-02-13, 16:45

The other dangerous part about these printers is the fact that they are not metal but plastic.

No metal detector would be able to pick it up.

SGT Rock

2013-02-13, 16:50

Your standard bullets are still made of metal.

Skidsteer

2013-02-13, 16:58

Your standard bullets are still made of metal.

I was going to say it's a lot easier to buy bullets than a gun when you reach your destination but that may not always be true anymore.

SGT Rock

2013-02-13, 17:10

Well when the whole Glock thing was blown out of proportions back in the late 80's early 90's there was a lot of hype about how these plastic guns were going to be the terrorist weapon of choice since they were made from plastic and metal detectors don't detect plastic. They were even banned in New York for a time because of this BS hype. This hype was created by people that didn't know guns and we probably blind to the fact that one bullet will set off most metal detectors, and the Glock 17 held 17 bullets. It also ignored the fact that the magazine, barrel, springs, and lots of other parts in the Glock were made from metal.

If someone were to print off a gun, it will still need these parts. I read some articles recently about how you can go on line and watch videos of working plastic guns made from this process. The only videos I could find were of guns that had a lower or frame made from this process, but the rest of the gun was still the standard gun parts. LOTS of metal. The one AR I saw made this way only fired 7 rounds before the lower shattered. And again, just the lower was made from plastic, everything else was the standard metal. So if a gun which is already mostly metal cannot work well, then I doubt there is much of a danger from guns made from Lego grade plastic.

But theoretically you could make a one use gun from some printer file. You could also carve one out of wood. Unless you then design some special bullets, the problem is guns still need metal cased bullets. You could go real old school with a muzzle loader, but then you still need primer and the actual bullet. And then you need to worry about chamber pressure. You can solve all these problems but are basically building a plastic grenade that will probably do more harm to the shooter than any target.

D'Artagnan

2013-02-14, 14:44

Reminds me of the Clint Eastwood film a few years back, "In the Line of Fire" where the bad guy made a two-shot pistol from resin. He hid the bullets in a rabbit's foot keychain fob. Seemed a novel idea at the time and that was several years ago. (Of course, Clint stopped him...)

Bulldawg

2013-02-14, 15:05

There was a movie that had some bullets made of ice I think. I can't remember what it was though.

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 15:10

Mythbusters tried that. It doesn't really work. If someone were going to make non-metallic bullets I would recommend cement.

Bulldawg

2013-02-14, 15:11

Mythbusters tried that. It doesn't really work. If someone were going to make non-metallic bullets I would recommend cement.

What was the movie though. I think it was like a CIA shooter, black guy if I remember correctly.

Cuffs

2013-02-14, 15:13

I remember the movie too BD, but not the title... there was also a recent episode of some crappy CSI type show just the other night, had the same thing. But like Rock says, mythbusters busted it. The ice is too fragile to hold up to the pressure...

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 15:20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLlJshR6nvg

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 15:21

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30i_6awxEG4

This is how you make your own gun, but it is made from metal.

D'Artagnan

2013-02-14, 15:46

What was the movie though. I think it was like a CIA shooter, black guy if I remember correctly.

Was it "Most Wanted"?

mudhead

2013-02-14, 17:20

Wesley Snipes? One of those frame the dude movies?

On an aside- This guy in CA supposedly had a Barrett and armor piercing rounds. Radio report don't know the accuracy. I sure thought armor piercing was off the market way back. Yes? So black market/theft ?

Or is that type of round readily available?

Superman

2013-02-14, 17:53

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLlJshR6nvg

Buttstroke someone with a plastic stock. Then buttstroke hime with a wood stock. Which one fucked him up more? The problem with a high rate of automatic fire is that you piss out a magazine in a heart beat and then you are at the highest risk ie changing magazines. Plastic, high tech shit is fine on the range but I'm an old fashioned kind of guy.

Skidsteer

2013-02-14, 18:14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLlJshR6nvg

I think they call that catastrophic failure.

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 18:43

Wesley Snipes? One of those frame the dude movies?

On an aside- This guy in CA supposedly had a Barrett and armor piercing rounds. Radio report don't know the accuracy. I sure thought armor piercing was off the market way back. Yes? So black market/theft ?

Or is that type of round readily available?Well a .50 cal round is already pretty armor piercing without adding any sort of change to it. No body armor will stand up to a hit from a .50 BMH round. A standard .50 round would shoot through those armored trucks they were using up there.

It has been my experience that reporters don't know dick about guns.

We do have a few forms of armor piercing rounds for the .50 in the military, the best would probably be the SLAP-T round which stands for Saboting Light Armor Piercing Tracer which is designed to shoot through some heavy armor vehicles. We also have an API which is an Armor Piercing Incidiary round which is designed to penetrate armored vehicles and set them on fire.

saimyoji

2013-02-14, 19:03

check out this armor piercing round

46GBjlUOROY

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:21

We can make those for smaller cannons now.

saimyoji

2013-02-14, 19:27

what kind of round does it fire? is the technology public?

Bearpaw

2013-02-14, 19:35

check out this armor piercing round

46GBjlUOROY

We can make those for smaller cannons now.

I was with the last field artillery officers basic course at Fort Sill to calculate fire missions for those tac nukes, before the ABM Treaty shut down the official process. They are still in the inventory, just "moth-balled". We could fire them from a 155 mm howitzer, which can be helicopter lifted for quick extraction. We could fire them high angle far enough out they would be in the air for 4-5 minutes. By the time they hit, the gun would be back under the helo, the crew in another bird and all moving away.

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:37

That one was 280mm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_Atomic_Cannon

When I first came in the Army there was a nuke round for the 8 inch cannon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M110_howitzer, it was the W79 series with a yield of only about 1KT, that one you showed the video for was 15KT I think.

As far as I know, the smallest nuke weapon ever was the Davy Crockett: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device) which was less than 1KT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiM-RzPHyGs

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:39

Oh, and there was a 155mm round that had a 0.1KT warhead. Pretty small in comparison to the 15KT nuke from that one you showed.

Bearpaw

2013-02-14, 19:44

That one was 280mm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_Atomic_Cannon

When I first came in the Army there was a nuke round for the 8 inch cannon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M110_howitzer, it was the W79 series with a yield of only about 1KT, that one you showed the video for was 15KT I think.

As far as I know, the smallest nuke weapon ever was the Davy Crockett: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device) which was less than 1KT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiM-RzPHyGs

If memory serves, the 155 mm round we trained for was a 2-kiloton warhead, but it was on the way out by 94 and I never laid eyes on a real one.

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:45

It's possible. I just read somewhere that the 155mm nuke was less than 1KT. It is no longer in service anyway.

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:46

Here is where I read that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48

I was never in artillery so I'm only repeating what I read. Maybe there was a higher yield weapon that was classified?

saimyoji

2013-02-14, 19:51

Have these ever been used in combat?

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:53

If anyone has the time to read through this and check out the different models, it is interesting to see how research progressed to make bigger and bigger explosions. Then at some point the idea came to make them smaller physically. I think the realization also came to people that at a certain point all you are blowing up with really big explosions is lots of air, that to be more effective doesn't necessarily mean bigger.

What is really interesting is the biggest one ever built was created by the Russians. It was designed and built to be 100 Megatons which in order of magnitude is 6,666.7 times bigger than the explosion that saimyoji posted. The Russians got worried about that, so they "salted" the warhead with led to reduce it's efficiency (whatever that means) so that the explosion was only 50 megatons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9AMtUeyDP0

SGT Rock

2013-02-14, 19:57

Have these ever been used in combat?

Only two nuke weapons were ever used in combat.

Superman

2013-02-14, 20:16

They didn't use any more than that because they found that it caused black, asian midgets.

Bearpaw

2013-02-14, 20:16

Here is where I read that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48

I was never in artillery so I'm only repeating what I read. Maybe there was a higher yield weapon that was classified?

Could be. But my memory could be off also. I remember the stuff I fired pretty well, but the nuke training was one day of classroom and a couple weeks later a field drill with an inert trainer. I don't remember all the specs on it. It could be it was 200 tons instead of 2 kilotons. I just know I was glad I never had to fire one.

Bearpaw

2013-02-14, 20:19

Have these ever been used in combat?

Only two nuke weapons were ever used in combat.

There was the rumor we used one on the Iraqis in 91. Turned out a British spec ops team saw a Stealth Bomber drop a fuel-air explosive on a dug-in Iraqi armor formation. FAE is bad stuff.

Ray

2013-02-14, 20:58

Didn't the Polish Army have a nuclear hand grenade?

SGT Rock

2013-02-15, 00:04

There was the rumor we used one on the Iraqis in 91. Turned out a British spec ops team saw a Stealth Bomber drop a fuel-air explosive on a dug-in Iraqi armor formation. FAE is bad stuff.Exactly, which is what is the weapon of choice for these types of conflicts today. You can make a thermobaric explosive with a "yield" similar to these small nukes but without the radiation or the stigma of nuclear weapons attached to it. They kill with a blast wave created when vaporized explosive is mixed with the surrounding air. They work really well against people inside of a structure you can aim these at like caves - and they became a weapon of choice for the Soviets in Afghanistan. They developed many types of thermobaric weapons including portable rockets that could be launched from the RPG-7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20zvZ-3MMw

Didn't the Polish Army have a nuclear hand grenade?Just a prototype.

mudhead

2013-02-15, 08:42

Back to the armor piercing ammo. Was this stuff available in smaller calibers back say '90s? Civilian available?

I seem to remember some hooey about it.

Guess I could understand why the LEO types might be bothered by it.

Hog On Ice

2013-02-15, 08:52

I think the hooey was related to availability of Teflon coated bullets which would penetrate Kevlar vests

john pickett

2013-02-15, 09:35

"They didn't use any more than that because they found that it caused black, asian midgets. "
Are you saying Saimyoji has a twin out there?
Oh, The Humanity!

john pickett

2013-02-15, 09:46

Like Mudhead, back to the armor piercing ammo. I've read somewhere that Armor-piercing, incendiary rounds were produced in 30-06 for use in the garand and other .30 rifles in WW-2. If I recall, infantrymen would hide in trees and shoot down into the engine compartment of German tanks. A few rounds were supposed to be enough to start an engine fire forcing the crew to exit the tank. Can't give a reference.

Elder

2013-02-15, 12:31

Ahem, I read somewhere..yea that's it...
There have been depleated uranium rounds for 30.06, 5.56, and .50 cal. Amazing impacts.
"Tracer" rounds have been around for a while and some are phosporous..will ignite gas/diesel...sometimes.
The phosporous really screws up a barrel.
Tracer..to allow the shooter better visuals while shooting...and give the other guys a locater. Hmmm.

SGT Rock

2013-02-15, 19:27

I've not heard of DU rounds for anything that small in caliber, but anything is possible. The smallest round I know for sure they make DU for is 25mm.

"Armor piercing" is like "Assault Rifle" it depends on how you decide to define it. A good example is the M855 Ball round. Look up the stats and you will find it has a 2cm steel penetrator in the tip of the bullet, but is classified as Ball and you can buy this all day long. The M995 is the 5.56mm AP round and has a tungsten penetrator and is illegal for sale to civilians, the DoD and DoE are the only two government departments that I know of that use it. But if you can find the stats on the M995, if I recall correctly, they say that under 300 meters the M855 Ball has better armor piercing characteristics against homogeneous steel which is the standard used to determine "AP" status for DoE and DoD. Either of these rounds will shoot slap through any level of your standard body armor used by the police. So think about that: M855 has a penetrator, but is not considered armor piercing but it really is if the armor is Level III or lower. Level IV armor is not your standard armor, generally that is the ceramic plate armor worn by soldiers and some high speed shooters like HRT and SWAT. That armor is protective up to 30-06 M2 which is a steel penetrator. I imagine it would protect against M855 as well, but don't know what it would do against M995 or M993 which is the tungsten AP round for 7.62x51mm NATO.

SGT Rock

2013-02-15, 20:29

Speaking of big booms, did you see that the meteor that blew up in Russia was about 300KT.

Bulldawg

2013-02-15, 20:43

Speaking of big booms, did you see that the meteor that blew up in Russia was about 300KT.

My kids still don’t believe that it really happened.

D'Artagnan

2013-02-15, 21:27

I spent several minutes looking at different videos on YouTube this morning. That was some wicked looking stuff.

mudhead

2013-02-16, 06:00

I'd like to know how big a chunk blew the hole in the ice...

JAK

2013-02-16, 08:40

If you were to make your own firearms or air guns or rockets, just for fun, at what point does it become illegal?
Is it based on velocity or caliber or intent or what? It would be fun to have a hiking stick you could shoot small game with.

sheepdog

2013-02-16, 12:22

If you were to make your own firearms or air guns or rockets, just for fun, at what point does it become illegal?
Is it based on velocity or caliber or intent or what? It would be fun to have a hiking stick you could shoot small game with.

Then you have the whole carrying a concealed weapon thing.

john pickett

2013-02-16, 18:22

I saw a you-tube video by IRAQVETERAN 8888 which discussed an insert for 26.5mm flare guns. One insert lets you fire 22rf, another chambers 45 colt/410 bore shotshells. In the video these guys (who run a gunstore/pawnshop in south Georgia) claim the insert is not a firearm, nor is the flaregun. But when you put the insert IN the flaregun you now have a firearm. Their concern was IIRC for concealed carry purpose. The insert btw is made by Kennesaw Cannon Company.

SGT Rock

2013-02-16, 19:11

I remember as a kid a guy that made a working zip gun out of a toy six shooter and a car antenna with lots of duct tape. It would shoot a .22

Tuckahoe

2013-02-17, 23:12

Back to the armor piercing ammo. Was this stuff available in smaller calibers back say '90s? Civilian available?

I seem to remember some hooey about it.

Guess I could understand why the LEO types might be bothered by it.

Simply there is a ban on armor piercing ammunition in pistol cartidges. There is not a ban on armor piercing rifle cartidges, unless a pistol chambers that rifle caliber.

Tuckahoe

2013-02-17, 23:19

I think the hooey was related to availability of Teflon coated bullets which would penetrate Kevlar vests

Remember that the teflon was merely a lubricrant, used to protect the rifle barrel from damage caused by the armor piercing projectile. The teflon did not cause the projectile to be armor piercing.

Tuckahoe

2013-02-17, 23:28

If you were to make your own firearms or air guns or rockets, just for fun, at what point does it become illegal?
Is it based on velocity or caliber or intent or what? It would be fun to have a hiking stick you could shoot small game with.

In the United States, anyone can freely build a firearm and as many firearms as you want for your personal use. You may even sell a firearm that you have made (to enhance your collection). However you may not be in the buisness of manufacturing firearms, without a license. ATF website covers many of these questions in detail.

atraildreamer

2013-02-23, 18:24

The Russians got worried about that, so they "salted" the warhead with led to reduce it's efficiency (whatever that means) so that the explosion was only 50 megatons.

I remember that when I was a kid. We were returning from playing basketball just about sunset and looked up in the sky toward the NNW and saw this big hellish-red ball of glowing stuff, way up in the stratosphere, slowly making its way westward across the USA, with a lot of streamers trailing it. When I asked what it was, one of my companions quite eloquently said that: "It's a big ball of sh*t from the Russian nuclear test!"

I don't know how long this ball of fallout was up there, but I think it went around the world at least a couple of times. Apparently, this thing dumped so much nuclear contamination into the air, and the ground beneath it, that it led to the ban on above ground nuclear testing. Remember the Strontium 90 they were detecting in cow's milk?

As a side note, I read somewhere that the explosion actually shifted the Earth about 6 inches in its' orbit. I'm glad they went with the smaller version!

atraildreamer

2013-02-23, 18:33

Speaking of big booms, did you see that the meteor that blew up in Russia was about 300KT.

"It is now clear that the Chelyabinsk-bound space rock had a mass of up to 10,000 tons and a diameter of around 15 meters (50 feet) before it slammed into the atmosphere at a shallow angle — around 20 degrees. The meteoroid was traveling at 18 kilometers (11 miles) per second — that’s a whopping 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) per hour. NASA scientists are now have an idea about the impactor’s characteristics and they have been able to trace its approximate orbital trajectory around the sun.

But no impact would be complete without calculating its destructive power. Judging by the energy inferred by infrasound stations, scientists reckon the meteor delivered the equivalent energy of 500 kilotons of TNT detonating at the same time. That’s roughly 30 Hiroshima-size nuclear bombs exploding 15-20 kilometers (9-12 miles) above the Earth’s surface. (As a comparison, the Tunguska event unleashed around 30 megatons of TNT equivalent energy — around 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.) So when eyewitnesses saw the stunning contrail overhead, it took a couple of minutes for the shock wave to impact the ground, causing widespread damage.

Windows were blown out, buildings suffered structural damage and hundreds of people were hurt, dozens remain in hospital days after impact. 24,000 emergency personnel have been dispatched to the region to inspect the infrastructure for damage. In total, it has been estimated that the city sustained 1 billion rubles ($33 million) worth of damage."

Great opportunity for the window installation industry in Russia!

Ray

2013-02-24, 17:48

... "In total, it has been estimated that the city sustained 1 billion rubles ($33 million) worth of damage."So a billion rubles of rubble?